Importance of Person-Centered Care for Pain Management in Nursing Home

Pain is very common among post-acute nursing home (NH) patients. Balancing appropriate pain management in NHs is a challenge due to concerns for potential adverse pharmacologic effects, high prevalence of multimorbidity and polypharmacy. Prescribing, dispensing and administering pro re nata (PRN) medicines is a very common approach, and a potential area for medication errors and delay in administration. We chose 2 post-acute care patients to discuss how a person-centered approach may improve pain management.